Release 1.8 - Patch Notes

Release 1.8 – Patch Notes

Available February 21, 2017

New Hero:
Temper

Often surprised by his own anger, this usually mild-mannered minotaur
blacksmith now focuses his fiery anger towards defeating the Unchained. One day,
he hopes to return to his dwarven family and his home.

Developer Comment: Rage is a new resource in OMD!U. Like mana, it is
used to fuel abilities, but unlike mana, it is generated by damaging enemies and
decays when heroes are out of combat. For Temper, we feel that rage more
accurately fits our portrayal of him as a misunderstood minotaur who is trying
to refocus his anger issues into something more positive--defeating the
Unchained.

Skills:

Swing! Punch! Smash! (LMB): If used in quick
succession, Temper anvil punches, swings his hammer, and delivers an
uppercut, building his rage.

Exploding Hammer (RMB): Temper throws his hammer. On
impact, it knocks back and damages enemies over time in its radius.

Rage of the Forge (Passive): Temper gains strength as
he builds rage, exploding at max rage and damaging and knocking back
enemies.

New Battleground:
Orcatraz

Orcatraz is an infamous Unchained prison filled with vile Order miscreants
that can barely be contained. Help the Unchained quell the riots there and stop
them from escaping.

New Battleground: Orcri-La

The orcs worshipping at Orcri-La have an odd tradition: they use boulder
chutes to sacrifice unbelievers. Use the boulders to keep Order interlopers out
and bring your own priest to guard the temple's rift!

New Endless Maps

Baths (1-10)

Throne Room (11-25)

Crogon Keep (46-75)

The Wall (76-100)

New Features: OMD!U
and Steam Achievements

We have implemented a new achievement system that allows players to
accomplish set goals in OMD!U. Some of these achievements are easy to
accomplish, but some will take some time. We've made them as fun and easy to
track as possible--they also count as Steam achievements! Find them on the
profile page and see if you can complete them all!

Hero Rework:
Stinkeye

We’ve received lots of feedback on Stinkeye’s new design and we decided to
makes some sweeping changes. The new design is more active than before patch
1.6, but less complicated and overwhelming than he is currently. We believe we
have found a happy medium. Below are the skills that have changed or have
returned to their prior functionality.

Arcane Anomaly (RMB): Conjures an orb of arcane energy
that charges and then detonates, dealing arcane damage in a radius.

Zephyr of Oasis (E): Summons a totem that increases the
movement speed of allies and slows the movement speed of enemies. May be
attacked to destroy the totem and stun nearby enemies for 3 seconds.
Note: The size of the totem has been increased significantly.

Wrath of Oasis (Q): Summons a totem that shoots nearby
enemies. When shot with Prestidigitized Projectile, the totem shoots 3
projectiles at nearby enemies. Lasts 20 seconds. Note: The size of the totem
has been increased significantly.

Shaman’s Blessing (Passive): After a totem expires, a
mana orb appears at the totem’s previous location.

Stinkeye Weaver changes:

Reduced Totem Testament's additional projectiles to +1 (from +2).

Reworked Booming Benediction. It now replaces mana orbs that drop from
totems with Tears of Oasis, which provide the benefit of three drops
(Unchained, mana, and health) combined.

Reduced Arcane Awe’s stun duration to 1s (from 3s).

Prologue:

Added the ability to skip the Prologue.

Updated prologue to better communicate game mechanics.

Developer Comment: We received feedback from veterans that the prologue is
unnecessary, but players new to OMD!U have expressed a desire that the
prologue should better explain what players should be doing. In order to
satisfy feedback from both demographics, we have made the prologue clearer
while allowing players to skip it.

General:

Improved load times for many users.

Made rare cards easier to acquire, but increased the number of cards
required to upgrade common traps.

Increased skull cost for tier 6 and 7 trap upgrades.

Quests:

Added new quests.

UI:

Fixed a bug that made players unable to purchase heroes in the workshop.

Fixed a bug preventing players from having two active party invites.

Added functionality: Players can now navigate the entire dashboard while
in a party. In addition, players can now see what the party leader is
viewing, and the party leader can see whether or not teammates have beaten
or obtained stars on maps.

Developer Comment: We have received feedback regarding
the inability to browse the play screen when not a party leader. These
new changes should aid players who need to communicate and browse
battlegrounds while in parties.

Merged all chat windows into one. Chat windows will also display
notifications when players receive a direct message.

Added additional alerts when trap upgrades are available.

Added an option to disable the low-health sound and screen effects.

Changed the low-health sound and screen effects to trigger at a lower
threshold for tank-like heroes.

Removed character voice distortion from low health sound effect.

Developer Comment: We have decided to make the
low-health sound and visual effects less prominent, less common, and
have added a way to disable it. However, we wanted to avoid toning it
down because many players feel their heroes die because they do not know
their health is low.

Added functionality to loadout editor: Loadout changes made during hero
select will now always be saved.

Updated par times to be easier in early challenges and more difficult in
later ones.

Adjusted hero damage so that they deal slightly less damage when they
play a battleground that is higher than the player's account level.

Fixed a bug that occasionally caused consumables to not be consumed when
used.

Reworked minions so that attacks on guardians no longer cause collateral
damage to barricades.

Lowered the attack range of several melee minions and improved the
timing of their attack animations. This should reduce the feeling of being
struck out of the blue.

Guardian Reworks:

Rumrudder Guardian: When placed at home, all attacks
cause his enemies to bleed. Scurvy Rumrudder attacks enemies at range with
his parrot, which immobilizes them. Enemies that die near him in his Plunder
aura have an increased chance to drop “booty" (health potions, mana potions,
coin, or Unchained drops).

Jailer Guardian: When placed at home, the Jailer has
significantly increased damage, and his melee attacks have a chance to
instantly execute enemies. While in combat, his Soul Shackle aura adds 20%
lifesteal to allies' primary attacks.

Friar Guardian: When placed at home, his primary
attacks deal arcane damage. His area attacks mesmerize enemies, and while in
combat, his Wiftmaker's Bwessing (no, that's not a typo) aura grants bonus
arcane damage to allies' primary attacks.

Priest Guardian: When placed at home, his attacks
instantly freeze enemies. Players within range of the Priest's Stirring
Benediction are granted increased mana regeneration whether the Priest is in
combat or out.

Stablehand Guardian: When placed at home, his melee and
ranged attacks slow enemies. His area attacks deal much higher than normal
damage, and players within range of the Stablehand's Hoedown aura are
granted a movement speed boost that lingers for 10 seconds outside the aura.

Quartermaster Guardian: When placed at home, all of his
attacks lower the damage of enemies by 50%. While in combat, the
Quartermaster provides a 50% damage bonus to allies within his Morale Boost
aura.

Trap Parts:

Developer Comment: This change makes the part more useful but harder to
abuse.

Revenge Rune: Reworked to properly function with
summoned retainers, but a 300 second cooldown goes into effect when
triggered.

Developer Comment: Most traps are permanently destroyed when killed, so
this cooldown currently only applies to summoned retainers.

Reusable Shielding: Reworked to properly function with
summoned retainers, but a 300 second cooldown goes into effect when
triggered.

Developer Comment: Most traps are permanently destroyed when killed, so
this cooldown currently only applies to summoned retainers.

Bounty Generator: Capped bonus to 20% on any minion.
Stacks linearly rather than exponentially.

Developer Comment: This change was made to thwart exploits.

Combo Generator: Was missing from the loot table. It's
been added.

Reflective Armor: Was missing from the loot table.
It's been added.

Kinetic Reclaimer: Was missing from the loot
table. It's been added.

Traps:

Speed Pad:

Reduced its cost to 350 coin (from 750).

Developer Comment: Since the removal of siege, speed pads are no
longer as necessary as they once were. Because of this, we have
significantly lowered its coin cost.

Big Game Hunter Traps:

Reworked to also target hunter minions./li>

Fixed a bug allowing these traps to deal higher than intended
damage.

Developer Comment: These traps were very powerful in siege but too
pigeonholed in survival. These changes should allow the trap to have
more uses while circumventing any potential exploits the trap had.

Healing Well and Mana Well:

Restores health 3x as fast./li>

Increased cooldown to 15 seconds (from 6 seconds).

Developer Comment: Since the removal of siege, this trap has seen
little use. These changes should allow the trap to better compete
for player loadout slots.

Summoner Trap:

Lowered respawn rate to 45 seconds (from 90 seconds).

Developer Comment: The cooldown on this trap was balanced for the
wave timer in siege, and so it felt too weak. We have significantly
lowered the respawn time so that the trap is ready for each wave.

Hero Design:

Increased the health regeneration of the Feral Fitness Weaver to
1.5% (from 0.8%).

Cygnus:

Increased health by 10%.

Reduced cooldown of Chain Lightning to 3.5 seconds (from 4).

Increased the range of healing and mana regeneration of Cygnus’s
Rift Shard.

Buffed Experienced Weaver to a 75% cast time reduction (from 25%).

Reduced the cooldown reduction of Silver Streak Weaver to 1 second
(from 2).

Developer Comment: Cygnus’s tier 1 chain lightning Weaver is one of
the best Weaver upgrades in the game. We are pulling back on this
and buffing alternative Weaver builds.

Hogarth:

SHIELD! cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 30.

ANGRY! triggers upon dealing damage rather than taking damage.

CATCH! damage increased by 100%.

Fixed presentation consistency issues with the FEEL GOOD! and HIMS
NOT AFRAID! icons.

Developer Comment: We’ve heard for a while that Hogarth’s new
passive conflicts with the benefit of freezing enemies, so we
decided to redesign it. Before the current changes, Hogarth
simultaneously needed enemies to attack him to provide passive
stacks, while also being able to freeze enemies, which prevents them
from attacking. In general, this results in a pretty noticeable
damage boost. We have also improved Hogarth’s ability to survive by
lowering the cooldown on SHIELD!

Reworked Feeling Frisky Weaver. Weaver now reduces control effects
against Midnight by 35% and increases her control effects by 25%.

Increased Dash and Slash's cooldown to 10 seconds (from 7).

Increased Dash and Slash's damage by 50%.

Developer Comment: These new weaver upgrades are replacing old
choices that weren’t very interesting or powerful. Control
resistance isn’t very useful by itself anymore due to the removal of
siege, and the speed boost to allies when running through them was
both difficult to use and overlapped with the weaver upgrade that
puts nearby allies in stealth. The change to Midnight’s Dash and
Slash ability was made to lower her ability to permanently stun
enemies when combined with other control abilities on allied heroes.

Oziel:

Increased movement speed by 5%.

Moves at full movement speed while using Essence Siphon.

Developer Comment: We've been listening to everyone's feed: Oziel
feels too slow. We have increased his movement speed to make him
feel better to play.

Developer Comment: In general, Bloodspike was underperforming in
most scenarios due to his low damage output. However, Bloodspike was
very effective in Endless, due to his ability to instantly kill
powerful minions. We have balanced this ability by making Maiming
Blow have a shorter cooldown and lower mana cost while increasing
the cooldown on Stunning Execution. We have also slightly increased
the cooldown and stack duration of Bloodbath to make the ability
feel less upkeep- heavy. Frenzy was a pretty weak ability as well,
so we have significantly lowered the mana cost and increased the
effectiveness of his shield.

Bionka:

Decreased the knockback of Beat Dem Back.

Increased movement speed by 6%.

Developer Comment: We still believe that Bionka design is more
compelling with a slow movement speed. However, we believe
increasing her movement speed and decreasing the knockback of Beat
Dem Back will make her feel better to play without making her too
powerful.

Developer Comment: When we made Gabriella a starting hero, we
decided to remove her ability to immobilize enemies with Blink and
make her other skills more powerful and have more utility. Our goal
was to make her more accessible for new players. However, feedback
on her pointed to this being less fun, so now players have the
choice to get immobilize back through a tier 1 Weaver upgrade.

Comments

Matchmade games will no longer launch with one player. They will only launch with 2+ players.

Known Issues:

Achievements are not activating in Steam. You can monitor the achievements you earn in-game, but they are currently not activating in Steam.

Overachiever trait is designed to provide a full level at the start of each match, however it is currently only providing a full level in a 3-player team. When playing in a 2-player team or solo, the trait will not provide a full level at the start of a match. This will be resolved in a future update.

Smolder's Incinerate skill has an incorrect description. It currently states that it deals 10% max health, but it does straight damage. The incorrect text will be resolved with the next update.

Web Spinner trap cannot be sold once placed. Choose wisely. We're working on getting this fixed ASAP.

Grinder trap appears to be continuously jammed (spitting out gibs). This is a visual problem, not a functional one. Grind away! We are working on getting this fixed as well.

Am I reading it right that Stinkeye's laser's are gone, and his damage did not get increased? I'll give this a try, but his lasers were his only good source of damage until his final weaver that allows minions killed by arcane anomalies to produce another anomaly.

I'm really glad Hogarth got a buff, as the only one on the forums defending him as being not that bad, he has struggled in his PvE role.

You said "Max's shield was underperforming" It was not underperforming when used against us. I can't tell you how many times I've one shot myself because he popped a shield between me firing and the blow actually landing. The worst was when I dropped an Arcane Anomaly to clear out the horde in front on him and he just ran up and stood in it, then hit his shield. Right now IMO Max is the toughest hero to have spawn against you because of the shield, and the stun. He's currently much tougher than anybody else.

Am I reading it right that Stinkeye's laser's are gone, and his damage did not get increased? I'll give this a try, but his lasers were his only good source of damage until his final weaver that allows minions killed by arcane anomalies to produce another anomaly.

I'm really glad Hogarth got a buff, as the only one on the forums defending him as being not that bad, he has struggled in his PvE role.

You said "Max's shield was underperforming" It was not underperforming when used against us. I can't tell you how many times I've one shot myself because he popped a shield between me firing and the blow actually landing. The worst was when I dropped an Arcane Anomaly to clear out the horde in front on him and he just ran up and stood in it, then hit his shield. Right now IMO Max is the toughest hero to have spawn against you because of the shield, and the stun. He's currently much tougher than anybody else.

Made rare cards easier to acquire, but increased the number of cards required to upgrade common traps.

What happens with the people that has all chests open? This is a counter part if you have most upgraded but still doesn't make up for it imho.

Increased skull cost for tier 6 and 7 trap upgrades.

I don't really like the combo gen at all, makes the leaderboards and the game mechanics to lose any sense. What's the logic behind adding a part to give a trap an extra combo, which mostly (only?) affects the score and therefore the leaderboards and can be so decisive that just the amount of them you have makes your score better or worse and kills any competition by it's unbalance (and RNG obtaining it ofc).

The rest of changes look fine. Stinkeye will now have to rely more on melee combat with mana management and right click. Sounds less complex but harder to perform well, and probably less powerful. The rest look fine.

Made rare cards easier to acquire, but increased the number of cards required to upgrade common traps.

What happens with the people that has all chests open? This is a counter part if you have most upgraded but still doesn't make up for it imho.

Increased skull cost for tier 6 and 7 trap upgrades.

I don't really like the combo gen at all, makes the leaderboards and the game mechanics to lose any sense. What's the logic behind adding a part to give a trap an extra combo, which mostly (only?) affects the score and therefore the leaderboards and can be so decisive that just the amount of them you have makes your score better or worse and kills any competition by it's unbalance (and RNG obtaining it ofc).

The rest of changes look fine. Stinkeye will now have to rely more on melee combat with mana management and right click. Sounds less complex but harder to perform well, and probably less powerful. The rest look fine.

The Wall prepare yourself.

We will be redesigning score in a future patch.

Think of it this way... You were able to obtain chests more easily, before the new damage penalty and before par times were made more challenging. Furthermore, you get to keep the T6 and T7 upgrades, even though their cost has been increased. Trust me, you're coming out ahead, not behind from these changes.

Jailer Guardian: When placed at home, the Jailer has significantly increased damage, and his melee attacks have a chance to instantly execute enemies. While in combat, his Soul Shackle aura adds 20% lifesteal to allies' primary attacks.

Friar Guardian: When placed at home, his primary attacks deal arcane damage. His area attacks mesmerize enemies, and while in combat, his Wiftmaker's Bwessing (no, that's not a typo) aura grants bonus arcane damage to allies' primary attacks.

is it just me or are those new guardians ?

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Why? So instead of more content you just make so it is harder to upgrade the traps? Most people that I talked with or comment in the forum already said that is it kind of hard to get enough skulls already and now the upgrades are gonna be locked behind a pay wall?

I dunno how to feel about stink eye yet... the laser were a cool feature.

Of course any changes have to be tried before further critics but the way it feels so far is that some changes seems more like a nerf than the said buff

blood spike is a example the focus should be now the Blow instead of the the excecution but what is the point of lowering the cool down but not lowering the mana cost enough... so we will have the ability available but won't be able to use it...

i dont understand he need of make the game harder and harder instead of funnier and funnier to play

Think of it this way... You were able to obtain chests more easily, before the new damage penalty and before par times were made more challenging. Furthermore, you get to keep the T6 and T7 upgrades, even though their cost has been increased. Trust me, you're coming out ahead, not behind from these changes.

I've obviously not played the new patch but this doesn't sound accurate at all, or at the very least it misses Timemaster point entirely.

First of all, last patch you guys already loosened the pars on the hardest par maps in the game, Dock of Eventide and Temple Graveyard. The pars on these two maps were so low that it was nearly impossible (or maybe straight up impossible) to make par before upgrading traps and account level far beyond their level requirements. I probably spent more time trying to make par on these two maps than every other map in the game combined. You also plan on increasing the pars on the earlier maps, the maps that currently have the hardest pars to make. Again, aside from the two maps I listed earlier, i spent more time working on apprentice/warmage pars than all of the master/riftlord maps combined. You're reducing the pars on some of these later maps but considering I had up to 17 minutes left on some of them (and probably 3-5 minutes on most of them) I doubt it will make these maps harder to par than the current app/wm maps. Overall the changes to pars will probably make chests easier (in terms of time investment, not map difficulty), not harder, to obtain.

Secondly, you guys are planning on reducing the difficulty of the current hardest maps while increasing the difficulty of the current easiest maps. Again, i haven't played the patch, but considering you're reducing the difficulty of Gate of Thuricvod I'm going to assume the maps you're increasing difficulty on will never be harder than that map is currently. Overall, this will make difficulty more uniform between the maps (a great thing) but it will also reduce the overall difficulty of the most difficult maps which should make it easier to 5 star all maps, not harder, since players won't get stuck on the 3-5 super difficult maps like before.

The change to skull upgrade costs is definitely beneficial for players that have already upgraded traps to t7, there's no denying that. But since we can't use these saved skulls to buy chests or parts directly from the deals, these skulls we saved on the upgrade costs do absolutely nothing to help us obtain the 3 new parts.

And lastly, and this is the most important point, all of these changes are irrelevant to Timemaster's overall point which is players that have already totally exhausted all of their chests have no way to obtain the 3 new parts outside of the daily and weekly chests. Considering the drop rate on parts (roughly 1 in 50 chests) and the total number of different parts that can roll (~40), statistically speaking it will take multiple months or longer to get the three new parts solely from the few daily/weekly chests we get. Now also consider we also need multiples of these parts so now we're looking at a year or more. Even if we assume what you're saying about chest acquisition is true (i.e., that it was easier for us to get chests in 1.6 compared to 1.7/1.8), at best that would have saved us a few days of time spent working on the new harder maps whereas as it stands right now we're up to a year behind newer players in obtaining the 3 new parts. If all we care about is getting those 3 new parts, we most certainly did not come out ahead.

There was no reason to make this upgrades more expensive "/ And we will still have the surplus of the t7 traps. Luck us who have being playing all this time... bad for new players... but I thought the point was to get new players to the game so the game don't die on well...

Regarding the Combo Generator part and Shade's comment about it on the livestream:

First, a couple things about combos: combos do have a non-score function. They
increase unchained meter gains and kill coins too (and i think XP too). An extra combo
increases unchained gain and kill coin by ~10%. So this alone makes
this part totally overpowered. It's basically like saying "any enemy
that crosses this trap is worth 10% more coin, 10% more unchained
meter and 50% more score." That is absolutely broken on its own even if you ignore the score increase. It's like having 10
Bounty Generator (the +1% coin field part) and 3 Unchained Resonators installed on the same trap.
Yes, this single part is better than 13 parts. Doesn't this indicate that the Combo Generator is completely overtuned?

You said that taking the Combo Generator is a handicap but that's not true at all. It's a field slot part and the only other field slots worth considering are the 0.5% hp or 0.5% mana regen parts. Even on high-wave endless maps I would never need more than one hp regen field slot to sustain my hp (if I'm taking a percent-hp regen trait, as I commonly do, I wouldn't even need this part at all). For mana regen I would never need more than 2 of these slotted to sustain my mana enough to spam all my skills whenever I wanted. Realistically I could get away with only 1 if I'm building multiple traps with this part per lane (e.g., 5 tars with 1 mana regen each per lane). So worst case scenario I would need 3 field slots for these 2 parts but more realistically only 2. That leaves 1-2 unused field slots that I can put a Combo Generator in without losing anything. But the thing is, the Combo Generator on its own is a strong part (as mentioned above). It doesn't only increase score, it also increases coin and unchained. The coin and unchained gains ALONE would be enough for me to want to use it over any other field slot. I would even go so far as to say that you're handicapping yourself for NOT using the Combo Generator, not the reverse. Presumably this part doesn't stack so in a team game only one player would need to slot this part for everyone to benefit from it, meaning the team as a whole gives up almost nothing to bring it.

It's
impact on score is also totally broken. Each additional combo
increases the score kill value of an enemy by ~50%. That means someone
with this part theoretically can have a score 50% higher than someone
without it. This is also too strong but, as was mentioned on the livestream, could maybe be eventually fixed with a entirely new score system. (Until then though, leaderboards will be 100% about who has combo gens and who doesn't.)

There's no
way to add only a partial combo so there's no way to reduce the power
of this item at all. The only option is to totally overhaul it. The
best way to do this in my opinion while retaining it's intended function would probably be to split out the non-score
functions of a combo and make this part do the following: "+X% to bonus
coin granted by combos and +Y% to Unchained Meter per combo." I don't
know what numbers would be balanced here but something like 10%
increased combo coin (keep in mind total coin and combo coin are different things; +10% combo coin would be around a ~1.5-5% increase in total coin) and 5% increased unchained meter would make this
balanced relative to the two traits (Making it Rain and Easily Excited)
that have similar functionality.

Edit: Did some testing and found that each combo increases the kill bounty by 10%, not 25% as it used to be. Updated my numbers to reflect that.